


the things we leave undescribed

by ExultedShores



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Academy Era, Crack Treated Seriously, Goddammit Elias, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, M/M, Mutilation, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:02:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25621048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExultedShores/pseuds/ExultedShores
Summary: Luigi Galvani first meets Kirin Jindosh on the fourth day of the Month of Hearths.He does not remember this.
Relationships: Luigi Galvani/Kirin Jindosh
Comments: 20
Kudos: 20





	the things we leave undescribed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hamlets_ghost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamlets_ghost/gifts).



> Before you ask, no, I also have no idea what the fuck this is. Yesterday was my friend [Elias'](https://archiveofourown.org/users/who_even_needs_sleep/pseuds/who_even_needs_sleep) brithday, and I promised to write him a little something to celebrate. And he asked, I shit you not, for Jindosh/Galvani. So I delivered.
> 
> Eli, honey, I love you, but _what the actual flying fuck._
> 
> Also a big thanks to my friend Sam who drew the lovely art featured in this fic and helped me come up with the title <3

Luigi Galvani first meets Kirin Jindosh on the fourth day of the Month of Hearths.

He does not remember this.

Kirin Jindosh is just another face in a sea of new students enrolling into the Academy, thriving at the party given in his honour – or, well, the honour of all the new academics, really, but he seems to believe all these people are here for him specifically. He introduces himself to everyone he considers to be important, with an air of arrogance about him that’s both amusing and utterly off-putting.

Luigi shakes his hand merely to be polite, and then he’s on his merry way again. He is only here because he is a professor and his presence is expected – and because he hopes he might have a chance to speak with Anton Sokolov once again. Sokolov is the greatest mind of their time, after all, and Luigi has always been utterly enraptured by him. The day he first met Sokolov, the twenty-eighth day of the Month of High Cold, will always be the most important day of his life.

Or so he believes.

* * *

The second time Luigi Galvani meets Kirin Jindosh, more than a year later, he is _enchanted_.

It’s some weeks after the start of the semester, and it’s coincidence that finds him at the Academy’s engineering department. He has never had an interest in engineering; he earned his own degrees in biology and medicine, studying pliable flesh instead of hard metal. Engineers lack elegance, hammering away at some massive project all day, and Luigi wouldn’t even be here if he didn’t need to pick up a set of specialised tools he commissioned from one of the department’s more skilled craftsmen.

The last thing he’s expecting when he walks past one of the labs is to stop and stare at one of the students.

But he does.

The student is making something Luigi has never seen before, an odd construction built of brass and… wood? Bones? What in the Void?

He watches for just a second too long – the student looks up and meets his eye, and then he _smirks_ , so very smugly, before he turns back to his… whatever it is he’s building. The smirk does not leave his face, and Luigi is too intrigued to just walk away.

“That’s quite an interesting contraption,” Luigi says as he steps up to the student’s workstation, cocking his head to regard the structure. “What is its function?”

The student chuckles. “Can’t you tell?” His voice is a drawl dripping with amusement. “How disappointing.”

Luigi narrows his eyes, inspecting the construct more closely. He honestly cannot make heads or tails of it; it isn’t like anything he has ever seen before. The only familiar aspect of it is the crank installed on the right side, not unlike the one the early models of the audiograph have, and Luigi makes an educated guess. “It… plays music?”

“Very good,” the student says, as though _he_ is the teacher, praising a pupil for a correct deduction, “for a biologist.”

He is very clearly at a disadvantage here. “You know me?”

The student looks up at him, eyes sharp and assessing. “I do, Dr. Galvani,” he confirms. “We spoke, however briefly, during the enrolment ceremony last year. Though I suppose you were too busy attempting in vain to capture a fleeting moment of Professor Sokolov’s attention to grant the new students any of your own.”

Luigi bristles at the – admittedly uncomfortably accurate – accusation. “Professor Sokolov’s time is valuable,” he feels compelled to argue, to defend both the greatest mind in the Empire and himself, for wanting to have a moment of that precious time. “But I assure you, I’m paying attention _now_.”

 _Then_ the student grins, the expression almost predatorial, and he reaches for the crank of his odd-looking machine. “Good,” he all but purrs, very clearly pleased. “I do so enjoy having a _rapt_ audience.”

He turns the crank, and –

 _Oh_.

It is _sublime_. There is no other word for the music, the harmonious, otherworldly melody that cascades from the oddly-constructed contraption. It is like nothing Luigi has ever heard before, like nothing that should be able to _exist_ in this miserable world, and the tears come unbidden, streaming down his cheeks as he stares at the music player – and at its creator, whose proud, delighted visage might as well have burned itself onto Luigi’s retinas. He is as beautiful as the music he has created, and Luigi is _entranced_.

Minutes later – or was it seconds? Hours? Days? – the music stops, and it feels as though he is breaking the surface after being underwater for too long. Yet all he wants is to dive back down.

“Ah, it seems my creation has run out of saltwater,” the student shrugs. “A shame. I ought to see about fabricating a larger reservoir – and a better way to keep it playing for longer periods of time. Cranking it by hand is rather archaic, really.”

Had he had control of his senses, Luigi would have questioned the use of saltwater as… fuel? As it is, he can only wipe at his eyes and watch as the student gathers his precious musical machine in his arms and abandons his workstation.

Though not before turning back to Luigi one last time, lips curled into a smile that would be arrogant if he had not just displayed that stunning feat of engineering. “Oh, and for future reference, Dr. Galvani,” he lilts, “the name is Kirin Jindosh.”

And Luigi will never forget that name again.

* * *

He finds himself inexplicably gravitating towards the engineering department every time he steps inside the halls of the Academy after being exposed to the utter revelation that is Kirin Jindosh.

By now, he’s commissioned more tools than he will know what to do with, and he knows he’ll have to stop soon if he wants to have coin left to feed himself this month. But Luigi can’t help wanting to find excuses to hang around the engineering labs – the ethereal sound of that music has not left his mind for even a second, and neither has the face of the man who created it. _Kirin Jindosh_.

Luigi catches a glimpse of him in one of the labs every once in a while, though not nearly as often as he would like. Rumours are he has his own private workspace now; according to the grapevine, Anton Sokolov himself has taken Kirin Jindosh under his wing, was as impressed by the music player as everyone else had been, and Luigi cannot help but be envious at that news. Not, as he would have been before, because someone is being taught by the great Anton Sokolov – and isn’t _that_ ironic – but because someone gets to spend so much time with Kirin and his genius, gets to witness it consistently, gets to nurture it, guide it, shape it. Luigi has never been an engineer, but… Void, he almost wishes he were one, now.

Though there are certainly benefits to being a doctor.

That much becomes apparent on the fourteenth day of the Month of Clans.

He is once again walking the by now familiar corridors of the engineering department, intending to inquire about the progress of his latest commission piece of equipment – and not to try and catch a glimpse of Kirin Jindosh, not at all – when Luigi is met with the harrowing sight of a fellow sprinting in his direction, her hair in disarray and her shirt sporting a sizeable bloodstain.

His instincts as a medical professional prompt him to step into the woman’s path. “What happened?” Luigi asks, his voice calm but stern. “Are you in need of medical attention?”

She shakes her head. “Not me, I’m not – there was an accident, I need to get Professor Sokolov, he has to – Void, he’s going to _kill_ me, I was supposed to supervise, I –”

“Where?” he cuts her off.

The straightforward question is easy enough to answer, even for someone who is very likely in shock. “The robotics lab, down the hall, there’s –”

“I know,” Luigi says, because he’s become uncomfortably familiar with the hallways of the engineering department over the last few months. “I’m a doctor; I will do what I can. Don’t dally fetching Professor Sokolov.”

He doesn’t wait for her answer, just steps around her and continues his way down the hall at a brisk pace, trying not to be concerned. Surely it’s not what he’s thinking, surely the fellow wasn’t so distraught because something has happened to Professor Sokolov’s protégé, surely Luigi won’t be faced with –

But he is.

Kirin is sitting on the floor of the lab with his back against the wall, silent tears rolling down his cheeks, usually well-coiffed hair clinging to his forehead with sweat. He’s clutching his heavily bleeding hand to his chest, and it doesn’t take a genius to make the connection between the whale oil-powered electric saw and the two severed digits laying on the floor next to the workbench.

The sight is more painful than it should be, tugging at his heartstrings in a way Luigi doesn’t care to dissect right now, but it’s easy to push those feelings aside. First and foremost, he is a doctor, and there is someone – it shouldn’t matter who, it _doesn’t_ matter who – who needs help. That’s all that’s important now.

He pushes through the small crowd of students that has gathered in the lab, most of them looking far, far too amused by the circumstances. Jealousy is an ugly thing, and seeing the brightest mind of their generation reduced to tears is the closest they can get to validation. At the very least one of them, or perhaps it was the fellow he met in the hallway, was clever enough to fetch a medical kit, though it seems none of them know how – or care – to help.

“Kirin,” Luigi says softly as he kneels at his side, uncaring of the blood on the floor, now seeping into the fabric of his expensive dress pants. “Kirin, look at me.”

He waits until Kirin lifts his head, and then he smiles, as kindly as he can muster. “Can I take a look at your hand?”

Kirin sets his jaw and clutches his bleeding hand just a bit tighter to his chest, and Luigi suspects he would have resorted to petulantly shaking his head if he weren’t aware of the audience watching every second of his misfortune. He breathes in sharply and lets go, all but thrusting his mangled hand in Luigi’s direction.

It’s bad, Luigi can tell at first glance. The cuts are jagged, not nearly clean enough to even consider reattaching the fingers. The best Kirin can hope for is some sort of prosthetic to replace to the digits he lost – if Luigi is able to minimise the damage to his nerves, that is.

“Alright,” he says as he takes gentle hold of Kirin’s hand – and isn’t it ironic, that the one opportunity he has to marvel at these beautifully elongated fingers is when two of them have just been severed? “I’m going to clean the wound first. It will sting.”

Luigi rummages around the medical kit with his free hand as he says it, producing a wash bottle of saline solution, a tiny vial of iodine, and one of the bright red elixirs Professor Sokolov developed together with Piero Joplin. Kirin eyes especially the iodine with wariness, but he doesn’t shy away.

“Fine,” he says through clenched teeth.

There is no quick-witted retort, no sarcastic drawl, and that’s almost more disconcerting than the blood and the tears. Luigi can’t say he _knows_ Kirin – not as well as he would like to, at the very least – but he has never seen him pass on an opportunity to prove he is the smartest person in the room.

But then he must feel far from the smartest person in the room right about now.

Luigi takes the bottle of saline solution and carefully pours it on the wounds to wash them, holding tightly onto Kirin’s wrist when his knee-jerk reaction is to pull his hand away. The pain has Kirin whimper a pitiful noise that has some of the other students snicker into their fists, and Luigi has to force himself to keep his hands steady lest they start to shake from the fury clawing up his throat like bile.

“Get out,” he says, his harsh voice reverberating loudly. Kirin flinches at the unexpected sound, and Luigi would feel guilty about that if he weren’t so _angry_. “All of you, out!”

He watches them go from the corner of his eye, the group of disgruntled students slowly filing out of the lab. He knows they would protest if he weren’t a professor, and he’s never been more grateful that he agreed to stay with the Academy to teach about blood-borne Serkonan diseases, even if his duties combined with his practice makes him feel like his back is about to break some days.

Kirin looks at him with something odd in his eyes, and Luigi has an apology for raising his voice at the tip of his tongue when Kirin’s gaze shifts, and a wholly different expression flitters across his face.

The shift in expression is followed almost immediately by the sound of footsteps behind Luigi, and he is more than prepared to give this new intruder a piece of his mind – but then they speak, and he immediately falls silent.

“Outsider’s eyes, boy,” Anton Sokolov curses vehemently at the sight he is greeted with, “what in the Void did you think you were doing? I thought you were smarter than this!”

If possible, Luigi is sure Kirin would have completely curled in on himself at the anger and disappointment in Sokolov’s voice, and he can’t blame him. Professor Sokolov’s regard is something highly coveted, and it must be devastating to lose it. Yet Luigi doesn’t feel sympathy for Kirin. He feels, instead, indignation on his behalf.

“Professor Sokolov,” Luigi cuts off Sokolov’s continued tirade, “if you’re not here to assist, I suggest you leave. My patient needs rest, and I need to focus on his treatment.”

The silence that follows is broken only by the sounds of Kirin’s laboured breathing, the saltwater slowly draining from the bottle, and Luigi’s own heartbeat thrumming impossibly loudly in his ears. Stupid, _stupid_ , that was such a stupid thing to do. Anton Sokolov is the greatest mind of the century, Royal Physician, Head of the Academy of Natural Philosophy. He could destroy Luigi’s entire career with a single word if he wanted to.

But he won’t. Sokolov is quiet for a spell, during which Luigi has to force himself not to look over his shoulder, before he sighs heavily. “I’ll get the fingers,” he grumbles. “Try not to mess up his hand worse than it already is, Galvani.”

He does as he says, collection Kirin’s severed fingers while Luigi finishes washing the wounds. Sokolov exits as Luigi is pulling a miniscule piece of metal from Kirin’s flesh with a set of tweezers, and despite how painful the process must be, Kirin relaxes as soon as Sokolov is out the door.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he mutters, his tone defensive. The ‘thank you’, however deeply buried, is not lost on Luigi.

“I did, actually,” Luigi says. “I can’t focus on my work if someone is raising a ruckus.”

He also wanted to spare Kirin, because he is brilliant and wonderful and is already paying more than enough for his mistake, but he doesn’t say that. He just disinfects Kirin’s wounds with the iodine and a little bit of elixir before he applies stitches and a bandage, the missing two digits much less obvious with a layer of cloth obscuring the wounds.

And if he takes the small liberty of brushing his fingers along the soft skin of Kirin’s wrist just a bit more than necessary… well, that’s another thing entirely.

* * *

He sees a lot more of Kirin Jindosh after that.

At first it’s a professional relationship; Luigi is his physician for as long as his hand is healing at least, and regular check-ups are an important part of Kirin’s recovery. Then it becomes physical therapy, which ended when Kirin came into his office with that proud smirk Luigi has come to covet more than he should, and showed him the beautiful prosthetic he’d made from polished ceramic.

Luigi thinks that’ll be the end of it, despondent as the thought makes him feel. He’s done what he could to help Kirin, and now things will return to the way they were, with Kirin working diligently under Professor Sokolov and Luigi forcing himself not to hang around the engineering department more than necessary.

Except things do not, in fact, go back to the way they were.

The week after what Luigi assumed was their last appointment, Kirin strolls into his office as though he is entitled to this time even now that his hand has healed, and he inquires about procuring fresh cadavers for his experiments. The week after that, he asks Luigi to tell him about bloodfly fever. The week after that, he brings a thick volume on cetacean anatomy and spends the hour reading ‘away from the rabble and their insufferably loud noises’. And all the weeks after that, Luigi has a pot of strong coffee brewed and ready when he arrives.

It's an odd ritual they construct, but Luigi wouldn’t trade it for the world. Kirin likes to talk, likes to tell Luigi about his inventions, about the things he has created or plans to create. He speaks at length about his idea to construct mechanical soldiers that will make the sacrifice of human life in warfare unnecessary, and by the stars, Luigi could listen to him for hours on end. He truly is brilliant, as great a mind as Sokolov if not even greater – and with a genuine desire to change things, to leave his mark on the world, that Sokolov has never displayed.

He will do great things.

And Luigi will bask in his brilliance for as long as Kirin will let him.

They continue their peculiar pattern for some months – just long enough to get comfortable in it, just long enough for Luigi to believe they’ve become something akin to friends, just long enough for a foolish spark of misguided affection to enkindle in his heart.

But everything changes on the nineteenth day of the Month of Wind.

On the nineteenth day of the Month of Wind, Kirin does not saunter into Luigi’s office as he has at exactly this time for half a year now. On the nineteenth day of the Month of Wind, the can of coffee goes cold. On the nineteenth day of the Month of Wind, Luigi Galvani is alone.

He should’ve seen it coming, really. Kirin Jindosh is a genius, the brightest star in the sky, and Luigi is merely a doctor and a researcher – a dime a dozen. It was inevitable that Kirin would tire of spending his time with Luigi eventually. He just wasn’t prepared for it to happen so quickly.

And, foolish as it may be, Luigi finds himself heading to the engineering department at the end of the day – because something could have happened, something could have prevented Kirin from making it to his office on time, there could be a reason for his absence other than disinterest. Or so Luigi tells himself even as he prepares to be severely disappointed.

But he was correct.

The halls of the engineering department are abuzz in a way they rarely are, a foreboding sense of something big having happened here recently. The student and even the fellows and professors walking past are whispering excitedly to one another, and it’s not a challenge to find out what has the entire department in its grip. Luigi just has to ask the one student to be gleefully informed that Kirin Jindosh, the Academy’s golden boy, Anton Sokolov’s favourite student, has been expelled.

 _Expelled_.

The word reverberates through Luigi’s mind as he rushes from the labs down to the dormitories – and then out into the rain when he finds Kirin’s dorm room already cleared out. It’s a move made out of desperation more than anything; he has no idea how long it’s been since Kirin packed his things and left.

But he’s in luck, if there is anything lucky at all about this situation.

“Kirin!” he calls after the figure making his way off the Academy’s grounds, but the rain is coming down in buckets, and his voice is lost amidst the harsh sound of water hitting stone.

But Luigi isn’t about to let him get away that easily – not this brilliant, beautiful mind, not the person he’s begun to consider his friend these past few months, not the man he… _admires_ so.

He runs, despite the weather, despite the mud splattering up to stain the hems of his trousers, despite the fact that he hasn’t ran in years now. Luigi Galvani runs after Kirin Jindosh, as he figuratively has since the day he vowed never to forget that name again.

“Kirin!” Luigi calls again when he is close enough to grab his shoulder. “Kirin, wait!”

“What?” Kirin spits with a vehemence Luigi did not expect, whirling around to stare him down with barely contained fury in his eyes. “You wanted to see my fall from grace, like all the vultures within those halls? Well, here’s your chance. Laugh! Laugh at my misery, get it out of your system, and then go to the Void!”

Luigi shakes his head, and, not trusting himself to speak, steps forward and pulls Kirin into an embrace. Because this may be the one and only chance he has to hold the object of his affections, and, more importantly, because he thinks Kirin desperately needs this right now.

That suspicion is confirmed when Kirin, despite his harsh words just seconds ago, immediately clings to him as though he is adrift at sea and Luigi is the only buoy he has.

“I’m sorry,” Luigi murmurs into Kirin’s hair, because no matter what happened, he knows Kirin did not deserve this. He is too clever for the Academy to ever let him go, and they were clearly too stupid to see that. “Do you have anywhere to go? I have a spare room, if you need it.”

“I’m not staying in Dunwall,” Kirin proclaims as he pushes back, his pride only allowing him so much comfort. “I can’t stay here, with all of these _imbeciles_. I have to go…” His face sours like he’s just bitten into a lemon. “I have to _go_. I just… haven’t made a decision as to my destination yet.”

He’s clearly distraught by the lack of plan, by not knowing what to do, and Luigi should be alarmed by how quickly he offers an alternative. “I own property in Serkonos. Karnaca,” he says. It’s his native Isle, after all, and he’s never been able to completely let go of his roots. “We can go there. I can open a practice, there’s always a need for physicians, and then you can continue your work.”

It’s too much, it’s too presumptuous, it’s too hopeful, and Luigi should really have expected the distrust and wariness that settles over Kirin’s expression. “Why would you do that?” he demands, sounding both confused and angry at the fact that he is confused. “Why would you uproot everything you’ve worked for – for me?”

And there are a million answers he has to that. Because Kirin Jindosh is a genius whose intellect should be nourished. Because they’re friends, and this is what friends do. Because Luigi will miss their weekly conversations more than he could ever articulate.

But that’s not what comes out.

“Because I’m in love with you.”

He wants to take the words back as soon as they leave his mouth – this is not the time or the place, this isn’t what Kirin needs right now, what in world was he _thinking_ –

But then Kirin smiles, open and genuine in a way Luigi hasn’t ever seen before, and he’s not thinking anything at all anymore.

“I see,” Kirin says, his voice so soft it’s difficult to hear over the sound of the relentless rain. “That’s certainly understandable.”

And against Luigi’s wildest expectations, Kirin steps forward once again and pulls him down into a searing kiss that banishes the cold sensation of the raindrops rolling down his neck in an instant.

It’s everything he’s ever wanted and more.

This, Luigi knows with certainty as he wraps his arms around Kirin’s waist and pulls him closer, is the most important day of his life.

When they get settled in Serkonos, he’ll have to remember to change the code to his safe.


End file.
